New End to an Old Beginning

Starting fresh and documenting again.

For so long I thought leaving this blog would benefit me from exposing my life to the entire world and would prevent others from knowing too much about me, but I’ve realised that this is probably the only place I can actually record things about my life through photographs and writing. I write journal entries on a daily basis but I can’t exactly stick a dozen photographs in there to help me recall the events of that day in the future when I’m perusing through my diary.

Things have changed significantly lately, with university commencing and watching people whom I’ve associated myself with as friends drift into all sorts of directions because of differences in preferences and interests. Attending a university which practically no one I know attends, I’ve been forced to build new links with strangers. It’s peculiar, having to be the one to initiate conversations and be the outgoing one — something I’ve never really seen as befitting for me, and I still don’t. It’s amazing how most people reciprocate kindness by attempting to carry on the conversation even when you run out of things to say. It’s reassuring to know that people are feeling just as lonely as I am in the process of transition.

The first day of university was dreadfully daunting. I struggled to converse with people or even hold eye contact with anyone for more than two seconds. The second day was better, though. I started to talk to the people in my tutorials and surprisingly most people remembered my name after seeing me for the first time in our previous tutorial; but that’s probably because I’m one of the very, very few Asians in my course. I’m also the only Asian in my pod — an allocated class in which we are allocated to for the first semester of our first year at law school.

Despite the heavy workload (so much reading I might as well crawl my eyes out and turn into a cloud) university is actually quite enjoyable. My mum says it’s “chill” — I seriously regret teaching her the meaning of this slang word because slips it into her sentences every now and then when she’s speaking Chinese to me. It’s funny, though. The sense of freedom when I attend university makes me feel so independent and capable of existing in a way where I can make my own choices for myself and decide what’s best in the process of planning my future.